


enter, stage left, the best friend

by crookedcrown



Series: no fade in, film begins on a kid in the big city [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Hollywood!AU, M/M, actors!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 16:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedcrown/pseuds/crookedcrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Leemo, you right wanker! Why aren’t you answering your phone? Whatever! Don’t forget, Hazza’s house party’s on this  weekend. That’s right, I said weekend. As in both days. Be there or be square! Seriously, don’t make me come get you. ‘Cause I will. I love you! Bye!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	enter, stage left, the best friend

_“Leemo, you right wanker! Why aren’t you answering your phone? Whatever! Don’t forget, Hazza’s house party’s on this  weekend. That’s right, I said weekend. As in both days. Be there or be square! Seriously, don’t make me come get you. ‘Cause I will. I love you! Bye!”_

 

After Liam gets back from filming a romcom where he plays another dumb jock with the heart of gold (oh god, it's too soon for him to already be pigeonholed, isn't it?), he sends a mass text to tell everyone he’s landed safely home, then turns his phone off and wraps himself up in quiet and solitude for three days. He has done this often enough people no longer freak out at his radio silence. Once, when no one else was in town, he had made it five and a half days before anyone turned up to drag him back into civilization. 

He loves his friends and family, would take a bloody bullet for each and everyone of them in a heartbeat, but sometimes, and especially after running himself ragged on a punishing film schedule, he just needs some alone time. He needs to crawl into his head for a few days and just let it all sink in. Things happen so quickly sometimes, Liam feels like he’s on a rollercoaster, where everything whips by him at a breakneck speed and he doesn’t want to come to the end of the ride and realise he’s missed out on the actual experience.

Sometimes he still can’t believe this is his life. He can’t believe people pay him to pretend to fly and do crazy stunts in an airplane, to run around in a stifling spacesuit, that might look really cool but would actually be incredibly impractical if they really were in space, shooting at aliens he can’t see but knows will be CGIed in later.

But right now he’s just Liam, floating on his back in his swimming pool, eyes closed, enjoying the warm glow of the sun shining high above him.

He’s idly spinning together plans for the rest of his day that mostly includes sweatpants and video games when his thoughts are interrupted by a small tidal wave crashing over his face.

He splutters and flails and in on his feet in a handful of seconds. He turns and glares, already having a sneaking suspicion on who it could be.

Only three set of people have access to Liam’s house - his parents, Andy and...

“Payno!” Niall’s sitting on the edge of the pool, legs dangling in the water, beaming like a tiny, Irish sun. “Ready to emerge out of your cocoon and become a pretty, pretty butterfly?”

Liam rolls his eyes but dog paddles towards him, before heaving himself out of the pool.

“Thanks for not setting the alarm off. Again. I guess.”

Liam ended up changing the code to Niall’s birthday because the git was always forgetting it and kept setting off the alarms like an incompetent burglar.

Niall throws a fluffy towel at Liam’s face and says, “I bought pizza.”

“Apology accepted.”

  
  


Niall doesn’t drastically upturn Liam’s original plans, he mostly just wedges himself into them. Liam still ends up in sweats and is sitting cross legged in front of the TV, going through his library of games. But he has the added bonus of having a belly full of pizza and his best mate cackling in his ear.

Niall’s holding the remote and is about to change the channel when a commercial for his latest skateboarding game comes on. He always thinks it’s hilarious, seeing himself on TV. Liam still can’t sit through his own movies without wincing through half of it and, if it’s really bad (re: most of his early stuff), he has to covers his eyes and then, inevitably, switch of the TV or remove himself if he gets overruled by everyone else in the room.

They watch in silence as TV Niall does his own stunts, a fact Liam knows as he was sat just off camera, grinning proudly. Niall always looks so relaxed despite all the complicated looking flips and turns. He has a way of moving his body that is graceful and languid, looking like he’s expelling little to no effort at all. He’s no Tony Hawk but he’s still goddamn brilliant and everything with his name stamped on it sells like hotcakes.

When TV Niall sticks the landing, he turns toward the camera, grins, and says, “Nialled it!” And then winks.

Sprawled on the floor, Liam groans. “Still the worst catchphrase. Ever.”

Niall chortles through a mouth full of pizza. “You had your chance to come up with a better one.” He wipes a greasy hand on his shorts and says, “Are we playing or what, Payno?”

 

 

“Oi,” Niall jabs at Liam’s thigh with his big toe. “Did you get my voicemail?”

“The one where you rambled about Harry’s party?” Liam replies, tilting to the left as he tries to encourage his kart to turn faster to avoid the banana peel.

Liam likes Harry. Everyone likes Harry. But Harry’s really more Niall’s friend. Ever since he and Danielle called it quits, Niall’s made more of an effort to drag Liam along to things. And Liam doesn’t mind, he always has fun. There’s never a dull moment when Niall’s around. But sometimes he just likes to stay in. And Niall’s usually up for that too, but lately he seems to interpret Liam wanting to stay in as Liam’s being mopey. And maybe he is, Liam’s not sure. There are too many feelings still tied up tightly inside his chest for him to distinguish one from another. Anger is definitely there, sadness too. And probably a tiny, tiny slither of relief. Maybe mopey is also tangled inside.

Niall doesn’t reply straight away. He’s too busy throwing a shell at Liam’s Yoshi before cruising to the finish line, right ahead of Liam. Every. Single Time. Liam throws his controller down with disgust. He really hates losing.

Stretching and yawning, Niall puts his feet on Liam’s lap. “Haz says you said no to the film.”

“Ah.” Liam closes a hand around one of Niall’s surprisingly delicate ankles. “Yeah. I mean, it’s a great script. I know Louis’ going to do something amazing with it. But...”

“Yeah. I knew it was going to be a bit of a stretch. I can’t imagine all the studio bigwigs would have been too happy watching you roll around on the ground and sucking face with Zayn Malik.”

Liam can’t help the flush to his cheeks. The script went into great detail about the multiple sex scenes. He may have even thought about them, once or twice, when he jerked off in the shower. He’s never had sex with a guy before, (Dani was his highschool sweetheart and Liam is loyal to an almost debilitating degree), but he has been curious. He has thought about it, his gaze has lingered on a stubbled jaw, broad shoulders and well-muscled chests.

His personal trainer for the first Ace movie had the bluest eyes Liam had ever seen. He had a lovely smile and had insisted Liam call him Jim instead of James. He also had an incredible body that made Liam feel a confusing twist of emotions that he thought was envy and admiration.

He had a raspy voice and a throaty laugh.

Liam always felt an anticipatory shudder whenever Jim leaned in close behind him, saying things like , “Yeah, Liam. Harder, come on. You can do it. That’s it. _Fuck yeah_. Don’t forget to breathe. In and out, yeah. _In and out_. You’ve got this. Don’t slow down. There we go.” In his Midwest twang.

Liam really liked Jim.

In their last session, right before the bulk of the filming, Liam was lying flat on the mat while Jim helped him stretch out his legs.

“You know,” Jim had said, hovering above him, “after the movie, I’m happy to have more private lessons with you.”

That’s nice, Liam had thought, blinking the sweat out of his eyes. He’d need it, he was pretty slack when left to his own devices. “You mean like this?”

Jim blinked at him. “Not exactly. I mean, at your place.”

“Oh,” Liam had said stupidly. “My gym’s not setup yet.” He had just moved into his house and half of his stuff was still in boxes and he definitely not going to be able to get it done anytime soon.

There was a pause as Jim had looked at him curiously and Liam panicked, wondering if this was one of those faux pas Andy kept harping on about. Had he offended him? There was still so much American slang Liam still didn’t get.

But then Jim had huffed out a laugh. “Sure, Liam.” He eased Liam’s leg back down to the floor. “You let me know, whenever your gym is ready.”

He then held out his hand to help Liam up to his feet.

Liam can’t remember what the talked about after that but he remembered the same feeling he always got whenever he doesn’t get a joke and the other person is too polite to point it out.

Jade had no qualms with laughing in his face, after he told her what happened as an example of how nice everyone was to him. “Oh, dumpling,” she said, dabbing at the tears in her eyes. “I hope you never change.”

 

Over the years, Liam discovered he found different people beautiful in different ways and for different reasons, and learnt that eyes, lips and collarbones had no gender. But the most beautiful, for the last six years, had been Dani, with her tinkling laugh, mile-long legs and sparkling eyes. But now that she’s gone, Liam almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. He can do more than look, more than imagine. But he’s really just at a loss. His mind is still processing it, his heart is still stagnant.

Some days he misses Dani so much, the ache is almost unbearable. Though those days are few and far between now. Mostly he misses the warmth of a body laying next to him, the weight of someone who’s just content to be there. Nothing else matters, really. Long hair, short hair. Tall, short. Thin, fat. Male, female.

But Liam’s always been a sucker for a pair of soulful eyes.

Zayn has beautiful eyes, framed with impossibly long lashes. Liam has imagined those eyes trained on him, focused and intense as he took Liam’s cock into that perfect mouth, the way those high cheekbones would hollow out as they sucked and sucked. And okay, maybe Liam’s thought about it more than once or twice.

He doesn’t realise he’s dug his fingernails into Niall’s skin until he jerks feet away. “What? Oh. Sorry.”

“You alright? You’re looking a little red.”

Liam just shrugs, glad that no part of Niall is currently draped across his lap right now. When he glances at Niall, he has a little smirk of a smile like he knows, like he can read Liam’s mind. So maybe he’s picked up on the fact that Liam can’t mention Zayn’s name without stuttering a little, or how he gets flustered and fidgets when someone else brings him up. Despite his air of boneless nonchalance, Niall is surprisingly observant. Unfortunately for Liam, nobody reads him better than Niall.

That will not do.

Liam reaches over and pinches Niall’s bum.

“Ow!” He squirms away and then promptly rolls onto his stomach. “Just going to take a quick nap and then I’m going to kick your arse in Call of Duty.”

“There’s a bed upstairs.” Liam sighs.

“‘M fine here,” Niall mumbles, eyes already closed.

Liam goes and gets Niall an extra blanket because he’s his mother’s son. But he also dumps it on Niall’s head because he’s still Liam and this is just Niall.

Niall wriggles and grumbles but still manages to wrap himself up like a human burrito without opening his eyes.

Liam can’t resist running a hand through the tufts of hair peeking out because it’s too adorable.

“He’s going to be there, you know.” Niall’s voice is mostly muffled.

“What?”

“Haz’s party.”

“Who’ll be there?”

Niall sighs and turns over. “Zayn.”

"Oh."

 

Oh.


End file.
